I always tell guests staying in our rentals not to feed the wildlife. After living here for a couple of weeks and not seeing any birds, we are living on a migratory path, I thought they needed some enticement to drop in. There was a new bird feeder inside of the house so we got seed, filled it up and put it out. Within the first 24 hours, we had no birds but slowly they started to arrive. We are now getting dozens a day with at least 12 different species. I was thrilled to see this cardinal and his mate as we aren't blessed with them at home on Deer Lake Road. I think by the end of March we will be getting hundreds of birds a day. I know when you start feeding you are not supposed to stop so I guess we will just have to stay living here!!!
Many of the local barns have barn quilts. Gorgeous colours and designs. I'll try to get more pics of them but it is hard if I'm whisking along with some local pick up glued to my bumper, to suddenly stop. Everyone drives a pick up around here.
And this is my wonderful barn quilt from Deer Lake Road. It was made by Melanie, Gord, Tehya and Kahia. I would really like two more to fill the wall but that is probably just wishful thinking!!!
On Saturday Tehya came from Ridgetown, University of Guelph Campus and we went on a tour of one of the local greenhouses. I've been constantly saying as we drive by them, "I really want to see inside of one of these greenhouses!!!" So this trip was like a dream come true for me. The size, 36 acres, of this site was truly amazing. We thankfully were driven around in a wee buggy.
They basically grow two types of English cucumbers. These ones on vertical strings and shorter ones that do not grow as tall.
This is what each row looks like. The track between the rows is for heating and to run equipment on. The leaves are huge compared to the leaves I get at home growing cucumbers. The cucumbers often start curly and straighten out as they grow.
What a beautiful sight!!!
As the plants grow, they are lowered every 6 or 7 days. This would cause a lot of foliage around the area between rows so the bottom leaves are all removed as this fellow is doing here.
The white tubes are part of the irrigation system with the smaller white spaghetti tubes coming down to each plant. You can see the small white boxes where the initial seed was planted sitting just inside the long white rectangular boxes where the root system exists. When each tiny plant has three or four leaves the top is pinched so that each seed actually produces two main stems. In the summer months, each seed can grow up to 30 cucumbers.
This fellow is supervising the plastic wrap covering the cucumber which we all fight with to get off!!! I had never realized before that it is actually two pieces with a seam down each side. You will notice this now....
The employees are mostly from the Philippines, Mexico and just a few local people. The migrant workers sign different agreements. One is that they agree to work for two years with a three week break in the middle to go home.
A common pest in any greenhouse is aphids. Here they are growing their own bugs which eat the aphids. Brilliant!!!
I thought it was a nice gesture to be given a cucumber but we received a box of cucumbers!!! Now it is cucumber with dips, on sandwiches, in soup, in casseroles, in anything we are eating for the next few weeks!!! Thankfully quite a few went back to Ridgetown to help feed those starving students.
This outing will always be one of my cherished memories of this trip. It was fantastic and a huge thank you needs to go out to Dean for arranging it and Adam for giving us the tour. It was a wonderful experience and a wish fulfilled!!!!!!!
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